Electionline Weekly reports. … Continue reading
Category Archives: chicanery
Miles Park for NPR: Sen. James Lankford is worried about election apathy.Not that people will stop caring about politics, but as the weeks and months pass after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report on Russian interference, the Oklahoma Republican … Continue reading
NYT: The mystery surrounding a Russian intrusion into Florida’s voter registration systems during the 2016 election deepened on Tuesday when Gov. Ron DeSantis said that the F.B.I. had revealed to him which counties in the state had been targeted — then required … Continue reading
Frank Wilkinson for Bloomberg View: Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware asked the attorney general this: If North Korean intelligence officers were to offer a U.S. campaign dirt on their opponent, should the campaign contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation?This was not … Continue reading
Roll Call: President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to reject any dirt on his 2020 opponents that originates in a foreign country, just a week after his personal attorney canceled a trip to Ukraine allegedly to search for just that.Trump … Continue reading
NYT: Facing withering attacks accusing him of seeking foreign assistance for President Trump’s re-election campaign, Rudolph W. Giuliani announced on Friday night that he had canceled a trip to Kiev in which he planned to push the incoming Ukrainian government … Continue reading
AP: One of the founding members of the 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees has been charged in a campaign finance conspiracy that took place during the 2012 presidential election, the Justice Department said Friday.A four-count indictment accuses Prakazrel “Pras” Michel … Continue reading
Miami Herald: The FBI has opened a public corruption investigation into Republican donor and South Florida massage-parlor entrepreneur Li “Cindy” Yang, focusing on whether she illegally funneled money from China into the president’s re-election effort or committed other potential campaign-finance violations, … Continue reading
Hudson Reporter. … Continue reading
Politico: The FBI will hold a classified briefing with members of the Florida congressional delegation next week about suspected Russian hacking during the 2016 elections.The FBI is scheduled to meet with House members May 16. The agency will sit down … Continue reading
AP: A special prosecutor in Virginia said Monday that he’s presented two indictments of election fraud against someone who worked on a failed re-election campaign for a Republican congressman last year.Special prosecutor Donald Caldwell said his investigation into Scott Taylor’s … Continue reading
The Clarion Ledger reports. … Continue reading
NYT: Turkey’s electoral authorities wiped away a crushing defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, ordering a rerun of the race for mayor of Istanbul won by the opposition and heightening the prospect of social unrest and a new economic crisis.The … Continue reading
Disturbing trend: Let’s say this loud and clear – without voter suppression: @staceyabrams is Governor Stacey Abrams. @AndrewGillum is Governor Andrew Gillum. #NAACPDetroit— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 6, 2019 … Continue reading
Bob Egelko for the SF Chronicle. … Continue reading
WTVF: Did Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada’s office try to frame a young activist who had challenged Republican lawmakers during this year’s legislative session?An exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation has uncovered new evidence – including racist text messages – that raise … Continue reading
NPR Morning Edition. … Continue reading
Not out of the question, per the NYT: The Trump team’s efforts to draw attention to the Bidens’ work in Ukraine, which is already yielding coverage in conservative media, has been led partly by Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as a … Continue reading
NJ Globe: County election officials were told about allegations of vote-by-mail improprieties in Elmwood Park two months before the November 2018 general election but did nothing to investigate at the time, the New Jersey Globe has learned.“I have become aware … Continue reading
Release: Today, Common Cause, the Campaign Legal Center, and Democracy 21 filed a supplementto a complaint filed in July 2017 against President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign committee for soliciting contributions from foreign nationals in the form of opposition research offered by Russians. … Continue reading
TapInto reports. … Continue reading
Oregon Live: Ten people in Oregon have been convicted so far in voter fraud cases stemming from the 2016 election.The convictions represent a tiny fraction of the 2,051,448 votes cast in the election, in which Oregon voters elected Democratic Gov. … Continue reading
Dallas Morning News: Acting Secretary of State David Whitley, whose confirmation has been stalled in the Texas Senate after a bungled advisory from his office questioned the citizenship of nearly 100,000 voters, has asked to meet with Senate Democrats following … Continue reading
WaPo: In recent months, U.S. national security officials have been preparing for Russian interference in the 2020 presidential race by tracking cyber threats, sharing intelligence about foreign disinformation efforts with social media companies and helping state election officials protect their … Continue reading
Aaron Rupar: Trump tires to dispel rumors he won't leave office "at the end of six years," calls the media "sick people" pic.twitter.com/57IQViqyBv— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 28, 2019 … Continue reading
NYT interview: I saw that recently you said something like you’d won your election but you just didn’t get to have the job. Yes.Is there any fear on your part that using that kind of language fans the same flames that … Continue reading
NYT: The Texas secretary of state agreed Friday to rescind an advisory issued by his office in January that questioned the citizenship status of almost 100,000 registered voters. The agreement will formally end a review of the voter rolls that a federal … Continue reading
NYT: But, it now appears, someone did.Slipped into the long-anticipated special counsel report on Russian interference in the 2016 election last week was a single sentence that caused a stir throughout the state and raised new questions about the vulnerability of the … Continue reading
NYT: The F.B.I. director warned anew on Friday about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a “significant counterintelligence threat.” The bureau has shifted additional agents and analysts to shore up defenses against foreign interference, according to a senior … Continue reading
Jed Shugerman NYT oped: Even without knowing what is redacted, the report offers “substantial and credible information” of the Trump campaign conspiring or coordinating with the Russian government. Under federal criminal law, “conspiracy” does not require direct proof or explicit words … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina has been arrested for voter fraud, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday morning, the latest in a string of arrests the state’s election fraud unit has made in connection with what Paxton described as “an … Continue reading
Politico: Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Wednesday he doesn’t recall instructing aides to keep discussions about election security off President Donald Trump’s radar, after The New York Times reported Mulvaney had said the topic “should be … Continue reading
WaPo: The Federal Election Commission could decide today whether nonpartisan groups can offer political campaigns free cybersecurity services, an issue that has made bedfellows of Republicans and Democrats but divided cyber pros and campaign finance hawks.The proposal’s authors, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 … Continue reading
NBC News: The Mueller report’s narrative of secret meetings between members of Donald Trump’s orbit and Russian operatives — contacts that occurred both before and after the 2016 election — portrays a political campaign that left itself open to a … Continue reading
In a recent Slate piece, I noted some of the issues with going after President Trump on campaign finance charges related to hush money payments, charges to which Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty. I added: “Cohen might have … Continue reading
NYT: In the months before Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to resign, she tried to focus the White House on one of her highest priorities as homeland security secretary: preparing for new and different Russian forms of interference in the 2020 … Continue reading
NYT: Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, dismissed Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign on Tuesday as a “couple of Facebook ads” and said the investigation of it was far more damaging to the country than the … Continue reading
You can watch here. … Continue reading
Trevor Potter oped: The openness of the Trump campaign to obtain help from the Russian government is most clearly illustrated by communications of Trump Jr. regarding the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. He was told a “Russian government attorney” … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Since the announcement of special counsel Robert Mueller’s decision to not indict President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice or any members of Trump’s family, critics of Trump who still feel … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of the “sweeping and systematic fashion” in which Russia interfered in the 2016 election highlights the breadth and complexity of the U.S. voting infrastructure that needs protecting.From voter registration to the vote … Continue reading
I ended my recent Slate piece on Mueller’s decision not to prosecute Donald Trump Jr. for campaign finance violations with this statement: Further, even if Mueller believed there were First Amendment questions in play, he should have left that for … Continue reading
Washington Post: President Trump on Thursday joked about serving more than two terms as president, telling a crowd that he might remain in the Oval Office “at least for 10 or 14 years.”Trump made the comments on the same day … Continue reading
Chicago Sun-Times: The Mueller Report confirms the Russians tried to hack the Illinois Board of Elections website in 2016.“In one instance in approximately June 2016, the GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting … Continue reading
NYT: In the months before the 2016 presidential election, Russia’s military intelligence agency penetrated computer systems in at least one Florida county government and planted malware in systems at a manufacturer of election equipment, the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller … Continue reading
WaPo: In what will stand as among the most definitive public accounts of the Kremlin’s attack on the American political system, the report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation laid out in precise, chronological detail how “the Russian … Continue reading
News and Observer: Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “appears to have” briefed the White House as to the targets of an FBI probe, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.A … Continue reading
Larry Noble for CNN Opinion: Since there are only two footnotes in the letter and this is the only substantive footnote, one can assume Barr thinks the legal definition of “coordination” used is significant. He is right.The question of whether … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Attorney General William Barr has indicated that a redacted version of the Mueller report is likely to be sent to Congress this week and made public. It could come any day now, though … Continue reading